On Nov. 17, 2024, a hope garden was planted near Memorial Park in San Ramon by the Yellow Tulip Project.
In an Instagram post, the city said: “This garden serves as a tribute to Trevor’s [Fabrique, a San Ramon resident] life and a powerful reminder of our community’s commitment to breaking the stigma around mental health and offering hope to those suffering in silence.”
The Yellow Tulip Project is a nonprofit organization that addresses mental illnesses head-on by bringing change all over the United States. By planting hope gardens and sharing the importance of communicating about mental health, the project helps unite communities.
More specifically, the Yellow Tulip Project is attempting to “smash the stigma around mental health” according to Education Advisor and Senior Research Associate Susan Teare.
“Our main goal is truly the basics of spreading hope and smashing the stigma,” Danielle Whyte, the Director of Ambassador Outreach for the Yellow Tulip Project, said.
In order to reach this goal, over 600 student ambassadors from the project complete different missions that vary based on community interest to educate their communities about the importance of mental health. Each ambassador and their community plants hope gardens, which are areas filled with yellow tulip bulbs.
The Yellow Tulip Project began in 2016 when founder Julia Hansen and her mother Suzanne Fox noticed the stigma around mental health that was causing pain to her friends. After losing two close friends to suicide, Hansen decided to speak out as a 15-year-old in high school. They started with small community conversations and broadened towards creating a non-profit organization that helps people talk about mental health.
As for the hope gardens planted through the project, they are a way to build better bonds with neighbors.
“When a hope garden is complete, we hope that everybody in the community can be a part of it. Everybody can participate in planting a hope garden,” Teare said.
After a hope garden is complete, community members wait until the yellow tulips bloom. On the day that they bloom, they have another hope day where they once again, celebrate the unification of local residents.
The idea behind hope gardens came when Hansen and Fox planted the first one in the fall of 2016 in Portland, Maine where they are from. The following spring, when the tulips had bloomed, their community had “another hope day where they celebrated hope in coming together as a community and bringing awareness to mental health” according to Teare.
Another way the Yellow Tulip Project has expanded is through cooperations with other organizations.
“We’ve partnered with the AFSP, the American Federation for suicide prevention. We partnered with NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness. We’ve partnered with local news stations. We’ve had features in Boston Logan Airport,” Whyte remarked.
The cooperations with organizations have helped spread the word about the project, allowing for more inspired teenagers to join Yellow Tulip Project as ambassadors.
Additionally, the ambassadors also help promote talks about mental health awareness in order to spread awareness about the subject.
Whyte explains that “wherever there’s a hope garden of yellow tulips, there’s a community of yellow tulip project ambassadors who are having conversations around mental health, who are having discussions about what it means to smash the stigma.”
For Hansen though, there is a deeper meaning behind the name “The Yellow Tulip Project.” Although the flower represents hope, Whyte states that there’s a personal connection behind it.
“For Julia Hansen, it hits much closer to home. One of her friend’s favorite flowers was a tulip and the other’s favorite color was yellow.” Whyte said. “In memory of her two friends, she decided to name the project The Yellow Tulip Project by combining both of their favorite things.”
